CLAIMS DIPLOMAS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 45, 21 August 1931, Page 8

CLAIMS DIPLOMAS

ASTROLOGER IN COURT

A FINE OF TWENTY POUNDS

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND; This Day. Spencer Bone was to-day fined £20, in default a month's imprisonment, for publicly using the initials "M.A.," intending to convey that he had a University degree. •

Detectives said that Bone was known as Doctor Bone, and conducted a course m astrology. In a circular, he described himself as M.A., P.8.D.8., F. 8.5., and undertook publicly.to read charts, and invited people to become members of the New Zealand Astrological Association at £1 a year. ■- The defendant was formerly in Christchurch running a. theatrical school and proposing to produce "movies," but it came to nothing. The defendant requested an adjournment to enable him to secure his diplomas from America.

The Magistrate (Mr. Hunt) said he would grant an adjournment if the defendant would swear on oath that he had diplomas, bnt warned him that if that were untrue he would risk prosecution for perjury. The defendant declined to enter the box, and when fined declared that he would produce his diplomas later.